In benchmarking the Platinum P51, we used our latest testbed PC, designed specifically for benchmarking PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs. It is built around an ASRock X670E Taichi motherboard with an AMD X670 chipset, 32GB of DDR5 memory, one PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 slot (with lanes that have direct access to the CPU), and three PCIe 4.0 slots. The system sports an AMD Ryzen 9 7900 CPU using an AMD stock cooler; a GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card; and a Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 Snow 750-watt power supply. The boot drive is an ADATA Legend 850 PCIe 4.0 SSD. (The reviewed SSD is tested as a secondary data drive.) The motherboard employs an air-cooled (fan-based) heatsink over the PCIe 5.0 M.2 slot that can be placed over the tested SSD, as I did when benchmarking the P51.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
We put the P51 through our usual internal solid-state drive benchmarks: Crystal DiskMark 6.0, UL’s PCMark 10 Storage, and UL’s 3DMark Storage benchmark. The last measures a drive’s performance in several gaming-related load and launch tasks. Among the comparison drives seen in the tables below, I included not only most of the Gen 5 SSDs we have reviewed, but two of the fastest PCI Express 4.0 SSDs we have come across: the WD Black SN850X and Micron’s Crucial T500.
Crystal DiskMark’s sequential speed tests provide a traditional measure of drive throughput, simulating best-case, straight-line transfers of large files. We use this test to determine if our tested speeds align with the manufacturer’s rated speeds.
The P51 effectively matched its sizzling rated throughput speeds in our Crystal DiskMark testing, turning in the third-fastest sequential read speed (behind the Samsung 9100 Pro and WD Black SN8100) and the second-fastest sequential write speed (behind the SN8100). Its 4K speed results were more mundane, with an average 4K read score among our comparison group, though far short of the SN8100, which stood alone at the top of the heap. Its 4K write score is at the bottom of a very narrow range of scores that includes all the PCI Express 5 SSDs except the Samsung 9100 Pro, whose score is much lower and similar to the two PCIe 4 SSDs in our comparison group. Good 4K write performance is especially important for an SSD used as a boot drive, though we test them as secondary drives.
The PCMark 10 Overall Storage test measures an SSD’s speed in performing a variety of routine tasks such as launching Windows, loading games and creative apps, and copying both small and large files. The P51 performed well on this benchmark, with the fourth-highest score, behind the Crucial T705, the Samsung 9100 Pro, and the WD SN8100. On the individual trace tests that, when aggregated, comprise the Overall Storage results, the P51 turned in a top score on the Overwatch and a second-best score on the Battlefield 5 launching traces. Its Call of Duty Black Ops 4 score was the worst, though, well below even the two elite PCI Express 4 SSDs we included for comparison.
On the 3DMark 10 gaming-centric benchmark, the Platinum P51 turned in a middling score, amid a pack of Gen 5 SSDs with similar scores, though well short of the high scorers on this test, the Crucial T705 and WD SN8100, whose results were nearly identical.
